Hourly rate

Don’t get me wrong. I know that there’s more to a bill than pure profit. There are taxes, overheads, employees, Eskom increases etc etc to deal with.
But – glad as I was that the orthopaedic surgeon fitted me in to his busy schedule at short notice last week – I was in there for 7 minutes and it cost me R800.

I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations and I reckon that amounts to R6857.14 per hour.

Like I said, that’s not all going into his pocket, but it’s certainly better than a kick in the teeth (which I can’t do at the moment anyway).

Lucky me, and indeed lucky him and lucky his bank manager, I shall return to consult with him for an equally expensive session later this week. There seems a good chance that I will be seeing him again the following week in a more theatrical setting too.

It could be worse. When my second child was born, the gynae was in that theatre for somewhat less than an hour, and that cost us a whopping R6000. Considering that she delivered about 5 babies that afternoon (roughly between 2pm and 5pm), and that’s R10000 per hour, if my maths hasn’t been too degraded by a week on the beach.

Mum 6000 just had a 10 minute consultation at the CC Dental Hospital that, on todays’ exchange rate, worked out at R6372.61 per hour. given that the cost of living in the UK is significantly higher you got a very poor deal.

6000, I think longer term your referral for another expensive scan works out significantly cheaper, although it is fair to say that this would be offset somewhat by more happy events (than eventually getting back on the football field).